Chapter 25 (Patreon)

Koizumi kept a wary eye on his surroundings. The masked woman could appear anywhere, and he had already gathered chakra in his feet, ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

But time passed, and she didn’t return.

Finally, he allowed himself a small sigh of relief and hurried toward the position of another Sand team.

Naruto, however, had been hiding nearby all along, patiently waiting for an opening.

Koizumi was a jōnin. Naruto himself was barely on par with an elite chūnin.

He had killed the two elite chūnin so quickly because of the Flying Thunder God marks he had placed beforehand. They had allowed him to strike from unexpected angles, and neither enemy had understood how the Immortal Binding Rope worked.

Koizumi was different. An experienced jōnin who had already seen the rope in action might have worked out how to avoid it—or even turn Naruto’s next attack against him.

At the very least, a careless move could drag Naruto into a difficult fight.

That was the last thing he wanted.

With his current strength, he would rather create an opening that let him make full use of the Immortal Binding Rope.

Koizumi ran for ten minutes, but his unease never faded.

Years of combat had taught him to trust that feeling. The masked woman was probably still nearby, waiting for him to lower his guard.

He decided to draw her out.

A shadow clone appeared in a puff of smoke. It stopped and pretended to rest while the real Koizumi concealed himself nearby, ready to kill their attacker the moment she appeared.

Two minutes later, the masked woman crept up on the resting clone.

The black and gold rope lashed toward it.

The clone vanished in a burst of smoke.

A vicious grin spread across Koizumi’s face. He had already finished his hand signs.

“Wind Style: Hurricane Jutsu!”

A swirling wind formed between his palms, rapidly swelling into a hurricane that bore down on the masked woman.

She cried out and tried to escape, but the violent wind tore through her.

Yet there was no spray of blood, no scattered flesh.

The woman simply dissolved into a cloud of white smoke.

“A shadow clone?!”

Koizumi immediately tried to use the Body Flicker Jutsu to get away.

He was too late.

The real attacker had already slipped behind him. The black and gold rope shot toward him.

Koizumi reacted much faster than his two teammates had. He leaped into the air at once, but the rope lengthened as it flew and caught his right foot.

The instant it made contact, it wound upward.

In less than a second, it had bound him from head to toe.

Koizumi shouted in fear and fury. He tried to use his chakra, but it wouldn’t respond. His physical strength was draining away just as quickly.

Like a captured wild boar, he could struggle all he wanted. He wasn’t escaping his captor’s trap.

Despair settled over him.

He had survived countless brushes with death to become a jōnin. At last, he had been given a chance to witness the Hidden Leaf’s destruction with his own eyes.

Instead, he was going to die before he even reached it, killed by someone whose name he didn’t know.

“Are... are you a Leaf ninja?” he asked, forcing out the words with what little strength remained.

“No. I’m an enemy of the Leaf.”

Naruto sneered beneath his mask.

A last flicker of hope appeared in Koizumi’s eyes. Faced with death, he no longer cared about protecting the village’s secrets.

“Then let me go! I’m on my way to carry out a plan that will destroy the Leaf. If you’re their enemy, we’re on the same side!”

“I’d like to see the Leaf destroyed, too,” Naruto replied. “But I’d rather have the points I’ll get for killing you.”

He had no interest in listening to any more pleading. Without hesitation, he drove his kunai into Koizumi’s neck.

[Ding! Congratulations, Host! You have killed one jōnin and two elite chūnin. Total reward: 120 points.]

“Ha! This ability really is incredible. It’s perfect for ambushes.”

Naruto considered searching for more Sand ninja who had slipped into the Land of Fire, then thought better of it.

If too many disappeared, the Hidden Sand might suspect their operation had been exposed and withdraw from the Konoha Crush.

He couldn’t have that.

The invasion needed to proceed as planned. He wanted to see the Third Hokage die, along with many of the people in the Hidden Leaf.

With that in mind, Naruto returned to the Land of Waves, leaving the one hundred and twenty points unspent for now.

Meanwhile, Haku returned to the hideout with food and medicinal herbs.

Zabuza’s headless body was waiting for him.

Tears spilled down his face, and he couldn’t stop them.

After the misery of his childhood, Zabuza had been the only light in Haku’s life. He was the person who had given him a reason to keep living.

Now that reason was gone.

Haku’s mind went blank. He felt hollow, barely aware of his surroundings. Without Zabuza, he had no idea where to go or how to live from this point onward.

That was when Gatō arrived with his men.

He had come to pressure Zabuza into dealing with the bridge construction as quickly as possible. Instead, he found a corpse and Haku standing beside it in despair.

“And he called himself a demon?” Gatō snapped. “Are all Mist ninja this stupid?”

Haku didn’t react to the insults. He hardly seemed to hear them.

He unsteadily gathered Zabuza’s body into his arms and headed for the exit, only for Gatō’s two bodyguards to block his way.

Even in his grief, Haku wasn’t someone they could push around.

Several ice senbon flashed through the air, striking both guards and dropping them to the ground.

Haku walked past them, still carrying Zabuza’s body. He left without a word, and no one knew where he went.

Gatō could only curse after him for a while before turning to his remaining men.

“Hire as many ninja mercenaries as you can. The more, the better! This time, we’ll overwhelm them with numbers. I’ll show them what happens when they defy Gatō!”

For the next few days, Naruto trained without interruption in the Land of Waves.

On the third day, Gatō assembled more than a hundred mercenary ninja, including both chūnin and genin. They gathered on the nearby islands, preparing to advance on the bridge.

Naruto had already sensed their movements.

His real body quietly approached their gathering place, once again disguised as the masked, red-haired woman.

Then he attacked.

“Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!”

One hundred shadow clones appeared around the mercenaries, each holding a black and gold rope.

They surged into the gathered ninja, their ropes lashing out.

The Immortal Binding Rope possessed tremendous sealing power. The instant it touched a ninja, it wound around their entire body, preventing them from using chakra. Their physical strength was rapidly sealed away as well.

The mercenaries were caught completely off guard.

None of them had encountered a weapon like this before. Before they could understand what was happening or work out how to respond, the ropes had already bound them one after another.

Each of Naruto’s hundred clones held a rope in its left hand and a kunai in its right.

As soon as a rope secured its target, the clone drove its kunai into the enemy’s neck without hesitation.

In moments, the gathering place had become a bloodbath.

[Ding! Congratulations, Host! You have killed the mercenary ninja. Total reward: 178 points. Current balance: 400 points.]

Naruto considered his options for a moment.

The abilities I have are enough for now, and there’s nothing else I particularly want. I’ll save the points and spend them when I need something.

Gatō had watched the slaughter from nearby. He was so frightened that he wet himself.

He tried to flee, but the real Naruto caught him with the Immortal Binding Rope, leaving him powerless to escape.

“Obey me, or die.”

Naruto’s cold voice sounded in his ears.

Over the following days, Naruto continued using shadow clones to practice his Wind Style jutsu.

Ten days later, the bridge was finally complete, and Team Seven could breathe a sigh of relief.

Kakashi still had questions.

Why hadn’t Zabuza returned to attack them? Had he abandoned the mission and left? Or had he decided it was too dangerous and fled?

It never occurred to him that Zabuza had already been killed by the blond boy at his side.

On a bright, clear day, Kakashi and his team bid farewell to Tazuna and began the journey back to the Hidden Leaf.

Everyone in Team Seven had gained something from their mission in the Land of Waves. Unlike in the original story, however, Sasuke hadn’t awakened his Sharingan.

Naruto’s gains were far greater than anyone realized.

He now possessed two extraordinary supernatural abilities, and Gatō had become his personal source of funds.

Most importantly, he had both the means and the money to slip out of the Hidden Leaf whenever he wanted and make it big in the shinobi world.